Put a Bird on It!

I laughed most during that Portlandia sketch because I'm totally in a bird-loving-phase right now.  Ever since I saw that episode, I've been noticing birds all over the place in Stumptown.  My friend Nike and I have sent several texts back and forth sharing joy in the fact that Portland puts birds on everything! 
All this is leading to the fact that I started (and finished) this quilt top today:

(Please pardon the terrible picture, my camera and I aren't on good terms right now)

and didn't notice until I was about halfway done that I definitely was putting a bird on it!

I love it!  And that blue fabric that is the border for this quilt?  I have so much of it that it's made its third quilt-appearance today, and last year I made myself a dress and belt entirely from it as well.

I finished something!

No, that something is not either of the quilts I've blogged lately.  Mom and Dad went to China and that means I don't have access to the giant conference tables at Tektronix which are the best surfaces for pinning big quilts.  I did, however, start and finish our niece's 4th birthday present on Friday.  She likes to cook with her mom, so I made her this apron:

I hope its bright colors appeal to her fashionable taste.  This kid is 4 going on 15; she has very definite fashion opinions and a new crush on Orlando Bloom.  "Do you think he looks better with blonde hair in Lord of the Rings or brown hair in Pirates of the Caribbean?" she asked Josh a couple weeks ago.  Seriously.  Just turned four.  She's awesome.

Another Europe Post

I know it's a little ridiculous.  It's been almost a year since our trip and I've posted only 2 or 3 of our European adventures.  But I've been thinking about how great Hallstatt was lately, and thought, "I should blog about that!"

Hallstatt, Austria was the second stop on our trip, and just might be my favorite place we went.  This place is Alpine perfection:

We stayed in a house where we had our own kitchen.  So Hallstatt became the home of our first international grocery shopping experience.  We bought some things we recognized and some things that we thought looked good even though we weren't quite sure what they were.  We ended up with some pretty tasty stew!  We also ate at some lakeside restaurants (because the whole town is lakeside) and had some fresh Hallstatter-See fish.  We hiked up to the world's oldest salt mine and then all through the woods.  We saw an authentic May Day celebration complete with liederhosen and accordions.  We explored an abandoned hotel in the next town over.  And we drank a lot of coffee on our balcony while admiring the once-in-a-lifetime view.  The lady we rented our rooms from said that the town doctor was getting ready to retire, and we really wished that Josh could speak German so he could take over!  Here are some pictures to help explain why:

The view from the salt mine above the town

 Some from our hike

The town's main street.  I love how everything is terraced up the hillside.

 Our future homestead in a clearing outside of town

 The waterfall by our future homestead.  Yes, this is about as close to perfection as you can get in this life.

I convinced Josh that this empty hotel was unlocked because they wanted us to explore it 

Our view

Wow.  This makes me want to go back.

My Mom's a Winner

My mom entered this website contest before Christmas and the stuff she won finally got here last week.  Check out the bounty:

She won 6 2 yard fabric cuts, a bajillion fat quarters, a jelly roll (which for my non-fabricy readers is a bunch of coordinated fabrics cut into strips and rolled together), lots of thread, some crazy huge batting scissors, gift cards to various websites, a new ruler, a book with a bunch of bag patterns in it, and (for some reason) a nail file!

I've been working on arranging these squares to my liking:

I think it's almost there.  I gave Josh artistic control over this one since it's for his cousin, and the quilts I make aren't always the most masculine.  Per his request, I'm going to move around a couple of the dark brown edge strips to make a more sensible pattern.

I'm Fancy

I wish this statement were true: Josh and I made a resolution to be fancier this year.  But we didn't.  I did however say we did when telling a story, because it sounded funny (it got a good laugh) and we are being fancier so far this year.  If I realized it a couple weeks into 2011, and we keep it going, can I say we resolved to be fancier?

Anyhow, I'm sure you're wondering about our first big event as fancy people.  On Saturday, we are going here

for an exclusive Cellar Club party.  Yes, we are members of this club.  Like I said, we're fancy.

On the quilting front, I finished sewing around the edges of all 480 leaves on the quilt for Emma, sewed all the blocks together, added a border, and made my first ever pieced back for it.  I'll add a picture soon.  I finally came up with a good plan for PJ's quilt and will start that this weekend while Josh is working in the ICU Sunday.  We do at least have a little weekend, he gets a whole 40 hours off starting tomorrow morning!

Sharing

We live with my parents right now.  And it's pretty awesome.  But whenever I say "my sewing room" or "my design board," I really mean "my mom's sewing room" and "my mom's design board."  Because she shares with me, I thought I would show you what she's working on right now:

We started quilting at the same time, when I took a class and then came home and showed her what the class did each week.  That was almost 8 years ago, and she is much more a quilting machine than I am now.  She's working on this one for her church auction/bazaar coming up in the spring.

Thanks for sharing with me, Mom!

I'm a Winner

I am the happy recipient of a fat quarter bundle from the Portland Modern Quilter's Guild!  There is a drawing for prizes at each month's meeting and this month I came away with four yards of awesome fabric.  Are you ready for this?

I learned that all the various animal prints were designed by a lady named Tammis Keefe in the '40s for her very popular handkerchief line.  Current fabric duo Michael Miller had them brought back for a tribute set to go with some of their own colorful prints.  Mostly I can't wait to figure out how to rock those alligators and those birds in a project!